Safeguarding Against Idiocy

Not, not an anti-Trump rant.

Not even close.

Even hard-core Philadelphia sports fans have to acknowledge that many among them are, how shall we say this, fifteen or twenty cents short of a quarter. Often, their enthusiasm and exhilaration and joy crosses over into sheer lunacy and violence.

And the Philadelphia police department understands this – and prepared for it.

For reasons no one really understands and that make no sense whatsoever, many of these fans, when they hit the streets to celebrate with their fellow fans, climb light and sign poles to get a better view of the mayhem all around them. In so doing they jeopardize both their own health and that of the people below them – the ones they fall on because invariably, the same diminished state that induces one to climb a poll eventually leads one to fall off it as well.

So what did the cops do when they realized that a victory by the Philadelphia Eagles football team last Sunday might spark such irrational exuberance?

This stop sign has a certain Wesson-ality

They identified specific neighborhoods and even intersections within neighborhoods where the celebrating most often gets out of hand and they slathered some of the street light and sign poles with Crisco.

Seriously.

So did it work?

It’s hard to say. Reporting on the outcome of this effort isn’t really anyone’s priority.

But in light of this new use for Crisco it’ll be hard, at least for The Curmudgeon, ever to look at cookies and pastry the same way again.